Hm. A pleasant change this year was that nobody alerted me last night of the Daylight Savings Time switchover… all of my devices except for the TV and caller ID switch automatically. (Correction, Caller ID switched with my first phone call of the day.) This Spring, Daylight Savings time changes and takes place 45 different times around the world. Here’s what time it is in assorted regions.

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Passover / Easter coming next week. I wonder how that’ll affect the folks on call? More or less busy?

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Hm…interesting review of Ft. Lauderdale in the Sun Sentinel… Not so Rowdy Spring Break

Spring Breakers may be wild in the streets in Daytona Beach, Cancun and Panama City Beach, but many of the ever-dwindling number of collegians who wing to Fort Lauderdale for their annual migration do so for a different reason: It’s a little calmer here.

“I love it ’cause it’s laid-back and it’s comfortable,” said Marilyn Feik, 20, from the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley, at an outdoor restaurant on the beach where she nibbled on delicate grilled fish, a drink with the obligatory umbrella before her.

Call her a Girl Gone Mild.

So is Chelsea Tucker, 17, a student at Lawrence Central High School in Indianapolis who’s visiting local friends. “It’s relaxed,” she said. “It’s more of a family-like atmosphere than in Cancun.”

Her classmate Steffany Stoeffler, 17, likes Fort Lauderdale because she doesn’t have to worry about hassles from booze-fueled Romeos. “Everyone’s real nice and friendly,” she said.

Fort Lauderdale may not be where the boys are any more, but those who do come here also appreciate the mellow scene. “Peaceful, relaxing, but it’s still a fun atmosphere,” is how a sunburned Bernie Murphy of Trinity Christian College in Chicago describes a Fort Lauderdale Spring Break. “It’s not a big party scene, wild activity. It’s just nice to get away and relax.”

As the annual party winds down, crowds still cram sidewalks outside bars featuring wet T-shirt contests, and mountains of empty beer bottles are daily swept from the beach — mostly across from the handful of hotels where breakers stay. But Spring Break here is no longer all bikinis, beer bongs and baggies. College kids share beach, sidewalk and restaurants with the retirees, conventioneers and mom-and-pop tourist families who outnumber them by the thousands.

Old men play chess on the seawall while collegians toss a football nearby. Moms with strollers mingle with gaggles of coeds on trash-free sidewalks. European tourists and, yes, even locals, bring brisk business to outdoor cafes. Traffic moves smoothly.

“During the day it’s really relaxing,” said Lyndsey Mitchell, 22, from Castleton State College in Castleton, Vt., who has been sunbathing and visiting local tourist attractions.

“It’s nice down here!” gushed her classmate Courtney Kerylow, 21.

Such reviews make tourism officials suspender-snapping proud. They say they have achieved their dream of transforming the beach from Spring Break party central to a pleasant promenade for visitors of all age and origin.

Collegians numbers are fewer — about 15,000 total during the nine-week Spring Break season that ends in mid-April, said Nicki Grossman, director of the Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau. Compare that figure with the 1.5 million tourists in general expected to visit the area during the same period.

And those tourists should generate approximately $700 million in business, Grossman said. Even allowing for inflation, that’s a healthy increase from the estimated $110 million in revenue the Spring Breakers brought in during the mid-’80s at their peak, when their numbers ran into the hundreds of thousands.

“We traded up,” Grossman said. “That’s exactly what we set out to do. It’s a kinder, gentler, quieter Spring Break. Now it’s the kids mixed in with conventioneers, families and other visitors.”

Mayor Jim Naugle said that’s just what the city wanted. “The goal was to diversify our tourist mix,” he said. “The tourist industry is very pleased. You can’t argue with success.”

Grossman said the collegians know what they’re in for when they choose Fort Lauderdale. “The kids here on Spring Break now are here on our terms,” she said.

The kids say they enjoy the easygoing atmosphere as much as the city officials.

“You can have fun and not worry about the stupid stuff,” said Rebecca Welt, 24, from Cazenovia College in Cazenovia, N.Y. Her boyfriend opted for the wilder environs of Daytona Beach — a place she wanted to avoid.

“Up there, there’s nudity, there’s no inhibitions, there’s madness and stupidity,” Welt said. “Down here it’s more calm.”

Her friend Janet Welch, 21, from Syracuse University in New York, also prefers the mellower Fort Lauderdale scene. “Am I going to wind up on Girls Gone Wild?” she said. “I don’t want to worry about that.”

“Normal” tourists have no trouble sharing the scene with Breakers.

“They’ve been a lot better behaved,” said Dave Taylor, 67, visiting from St. Louis with his wife, Beth, also 67. “Everybody’s been polite.”

“It’s amusing,” Beth Taylor said of the Spring Break scene.

Sipping coffee at a sidewalk cafe, Jeb Shafer, a Fort Lauderdale resident who visits the beach almost every day, surveyed the passing parade of foreigners, families and breakers. “It seems like people are getting along,” he said. “The kids don’t seem to be too bad.”

Shafer’s mother, visiting from Kansas, was hard-pressed to report any Spring Break craziness. “They’re much better mannered,” she said of the breakers. “I didn’t see anything I felt was out of order.”

Police too, give the kids passing grades for comportment. “It’s been a pretty orderly crowd,” said Sgt. Alfred Lewers Jr., spokesman for the Fort Lauderdale department. “We’re getting a great deal of cooperation from the kids that are visiting.”

State beverage agents have served only 176 citations for underage drinking in Fort Lauderdale during two weeks in mid-March. Some 895 such citations were issued in Panama City Beach, and 790 in Daytona Beach, two destinations where the Spring Break party still goes on.

Bob Cox, former 20-year city commissioner and mayor from 1985 to ’90, was one of the officials who, as he says, “put the brakes on Spring Break.” In the late ’80s, the city passed a $32 million bond issue to redevelop the beach area. Sidewalks were broadened, traffic patterns changed, buildings were constructed, and law enforcement was stepped up.

“The beach had to be changed,” Cox said, and Spring Break as it existed wasn’t part of the plan. “We didn’t kill it, we toned it down,” said Cox, who still lives in the city.

“Certainly the city got what it paid for. This didn’t come cheap,” Grossman said of the changes that led to a broader tourist base. “This is the payoff.”

It does seem a bit more mellow than this time two years ago.

That inspired me to look through E-Podunk at Fort Lauderdale’s entry. Lots of nifty demographics to look over, if you’re into that sort of thing (good for all sorts of locations, too.)

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current mood:

Someone once told me the grass is much greener
On the other side…

Well I payed a visit, but it’s possible I missed it.
It seemed different, yet exactly the same, yeah.

‘Til further notice I’m in-between
From where I’m standing
My grass is green.

No fanfare over today being 04/04/04? ah well.